LALIT SARASWAT examines how AI is changing business discovery, why appearing on Google may no longer be enough, and what companies should check before their customers begin asking AI for recommendations
For years, businesses have worried about a familiar question: Will customers find us on Google?
That question still matters. But another one is beginning to sit beside it: Will AI recommend us?
Think about choosing a hotel for visiting executives in Goa. You could search Google, open websites, check Maps, read reviews and compare locations. Or you could ask an AI assistant: “I need a good hotel near Panaji for senior executives. Reliable Wi-Fi, convenient for meetings, comfortable but not extravagant. What would you suggest?”
You are asking AI for judgement. AI is thus a gatekeeper, deciding whether your brand can enter its recommended list or not. The gatekeeper’s opinion can make or break your business.
Search itself is changing
This is no longer a small experiment.
At Google I/O in May 2026, Google reported that AI Mode had surpassed one billion monthly active users globally. Google also said people using its AI-powered search features were increasingly treating search as an ongoing conversation.
There is another consequence. A study using December 2025 data found that when a Google AI Overview appeared, the top-ranking page had a 58 per cent lower average click-through rate. The customer may get enough of the answer without clicking through to the websites below. Ranking still matters. But appearing meaningfully in the answer is becoming important, too.
Being found is not the same as being recommended
Traditional search usually gives the customer options. AI increasingly interprets those options.
A business may rank well on Google and still fail to appear when someone asks an AI assistant what to buy, where to stay, whom to consult or which supplier to consider.
It might appear but not be shortlisted. It might be described inaccurately. Or a competitor may be recommended because the available information makes its suitability easier to understand. Or you may be mentioned, but not recommended.
I have started thinking of this as AI Discovery: can the machine find you, understand you, and place you in the right shortlist?
Customers do not ask neat marketing questions
The easiest way to test this badly is to type your own company name into ChatGPT and feel reassured when it recognises you. There is another trap. Ask an AI assistant about your own company by name and you will get a reassuring answer. Reassurance is not the test. Your customer is unlikely to ask the question that way. Customers will usually ask something else. Which digital marketing firm in Goa works with established businesses? Which accountant understands manufacturing companies? Which hotel would suit a management offsite? Which hotel near Calangute–Candolim is suitable for an offsite meeting? Small changes in the question can produce very different recommendations.
We use a simple framework called PILOT to structure such buying questions:
Persona × Intent × Location × Occasion × Timing.
Who is asking? What are they trying to do? Where? In what situation? At what point in the decision? Change one of those and the shortlist can change.
Your website is only one witness
Your website tells the internet what you say about yourself. AI systems will also encounter reviews, directories, magazine articles, interviews, videos, industry publications and other independent references. That makes the wider digital evidence around a brand more important. The answer is not to produce mountains of AI-generated content. The internet is not suffering from a shortage of words. On the contrary, people who could barely hold a monosyllabic conversation are now posting paragraphs of AI slop on social media. The useful question is whether accurate, consistent evidence about your business exists in places that customers and machines can find.
Try this with your own business.
Before your next marketing meeting, write down three realistic questions a potential customer could ask before buying in your category. Do not include your company name. Ask those questions on the AI assistants you use.
Then check: Did your brand appear?
Why was it mentioned, recommended or ignored?
Was the description accurate?
Repeat the exercise after a few months.
You may discover that a business well known offline is surprisingly weak in AI answers. You may also find a smaller competitor appearing because the internet contains clearer evidence about what it does and whom it serves. Either result is useful. For years, digital marketing asked whether the customer could find you. We now have another question to measure. When AI helps that customer decide, does it understand why you belong on the shortlist?